Chapter 3

Question 1

illumination

Answer 1

lighting up a text with visual information; the decoration of a manuscript, often with elaborate design and images in gold or silver and color.

Question 2

calligraphy

Answer 2

Literally means beautiful writing; lettering drawn by hand with a brush or pen.

Question 3

palimpsest

Answer 3

A document that records a series of texts, one written over another that has been erased but that may show through.

Question 4

woodblocks

Answer 4

A relief printing surface made of wood; negative spaces are carved away from the block, and the remaining area is inked and printed.

Question 5

letterpress

Answer 5

Relief printing technology that inks the raised surfaces of metal type or image blocks and impresses them on paper.

Question 6

marginalia

Answer 6

Any notes or commentary appended to a text in the space left at the top, bottom, or edges of a page.

Question 7

glosses

Answer 7

A commentary explaining or commenting upon a text.

Question 8

colophon

Answer 8

The final text in a book, which often provides information about the book’s production and edition.

Question 9

chancery

Answer 9

Handwriting associated with the courts or with a chancellor who kept records; a particular style of writing used exclusively for legal documents.

Question 10

hands

Answer 10

A particular style of writing, often associated with a specific monastery or geographical region.

Question 11

ascenders

Answer 11

Strokes that rise above the x-height of a typeface, such as the upper part of an h.

Question 12

descenders

Answer 12

Strokes that drop below the baseline of a typeface, such as the tail of a y.

Question 13

x-height

Answer 13

The hight of the lowercase x in any typeface; the height of the body of the letters in any typeface; a standard way of gauging the size of a face, as well as the proportions of the body to ascenders and descenders; type with a large x-height is often considered more legible.

Question 14

counters

Answer 14

Spaces or openings that are enclosed by strokes in a letterform, such as the center of an o.

Question 15

historiated

Answer 15

Of letters, decorated with figures or vignettes.

Question 16

versals

Answer 16

Capitals used at the beginning of a verse or paragraph in a manuscript, often decorated with filials or other line work or color.

Question 17

blackletter

Answer 17

A heavy and angular manuscript hand that developed in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries; a model for early printing types and a style that came to be associated with Germany, where the use of blackletter faces continued after other countries had shifted to roman type.

Question 18

bastarda

Answer 18

A mixture of blackletter and cursive writing, the result of cross-cultural influences in the Middle Ages.

Question 19

horror vacui

Answer 19

The notion of a space that did not include the presence of God as a source of religious terror and theological conundrum; in graphic terms, an aversion to leaving open spaces in a composition.

Question 20

books of hours

Answer 20

A prayer book that contains observances for appointed times of the day, often highly decorated, with illustrations of seasonal cycles and so on.

Question 21

movable type

Answer 21

Type cut and cast in standard sizes of individual letters so that it can be set multiple times in variable combinations.

Question 22

faces

Answer 22

A typeface is a full set of letters and punctuation marks designed to work together in a single style.

Question 23

What do the authors mean by “knowledge production”?

Answer 23

Definition: information and its framing or codification into a field or discipline.

“A literate public had existed in the Classical period, but, in the largely decentralized culture of the early Middle Ages, almost all formal education took place within religious orders. Control over knowledge production and dissemination was centered in the church, and, at times, the tensions between science and the charge of heresy brought this power into sharp relief.”

p. 34

Question 24

Why was the codex such an important development in book production?

Answer 24

“The codex was developed in the third and fourth centuries and by 400 had replaced other formats. In the fifth through the eighth centuries, monasteries became the institutions most concerned with producing texts. The era of the codex book (made with vellum from animal skins) succeeded that of wall inscriptions, wood and wax tablets, and papyrus and vellum scrolls…When scholarly study joined prayer and contemplation as a use for codex volumes, books acquired chapter headers and other navigational devices, These features of page formatting remain an integral part of graphic templates. Alongside, the continuing use of letterforms that had developed in antiquity, new styles emerged. Had printing arrived at the end of the Classical period, without the graphic developments that took place in the Middle Ages, contemporary written communication would look very different.
p.34-35 is good for more explanation, which helps gets to the answer of the question; more about the codex on p.38

Question 25

Why were there so many distinct “hands” in medieval manuscript production?

Answer 25

Medieval lettering was linked to specific geographical locations and institutional sites, the first of which were monasteries. The inventory of Medieval scripts is extensive, and each variation carries indications of the place and time of its origin. A local script might derive its style from a particular monastery, but it might also share traits with the scripts of monasteries in the vicinity, since monks learned to write from each other. By 8th century, some local manuscript hands became regional and were associated with the administration of kingdoms and territories, rather than simply practices within monastery walls.

p35

Question 26

Identify a couple of these scripts and characterize their purpose. For example, what was Textura used for or Bastarda?

Answer 26

Textura: A tightly written manuscript hand or typeface with narrowly spaced strokes, suggestive of a woven pattern; condensed blacklister hands. Textura is a generic term for these

Bastarda: A mixture of blackletter and cursive writing, the result of cross-cultural influences in the Middle Ages.
Bastarda was used to signal the script’s association with scholars, rather than clerics. Used for legal documents and correspondence, these letterforms are closer at their source to Roman cursive hands than to capitals.

Question 27

What significant purpose did Carolingian miniscule serve?

Answer 27

Chapter3

Question 28

What kinds of manuscripts were produced during the Middle Ages and why?

Answer 28

Chapter3

Question 29

In what ways were scholarly texts different from more strictly religious ones?

Answer 29

Chapter3